It felt too good to be true. Manu Akanji and John Stones were back in training, leaving just Nathan Ake on the short term injury list.

And then Pep Guardiola confirmed Ruben Dias was injured against Manchester United and Manchester City feel back to square one again.

'Just give me back my players', has been Guardiola's go-to line for the last few weeks, putting the injury crisis into a handy six-word slogan. But it's not as simple as that - because the Dias injury sums up the endless cycle City are in that will only make each aggravating factor worse.

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The cycle goes like this: First a player gets injured. Like Rodri, or Kevin De Bruyne, or Dias.

City moulded a versatile squad to cope with one or two absences, especially in defence - but combine the injuries with the late arrival back of players after the Euros and the 'burnout' reported by Phil Foden that has also affected others, and the chance of injuries increases.

So with players out, others have to step up and play more than expected. Rico Lewis and Josko Gvardiol are among the most-used players this season, Ilkay Gundogan too. For different reasons, they won't have been expected to play as much as they have.

And then the form suffers among those players. Lewis and Gvardiol started the season brilliantly, but look completely overworked and need a rest they simply can't have. Mistakes start creeping in, concentration suffers. City got away with it at first, rescuing some late points or using Erling Haaland's firepower to hit back, but that only papered over cracks for so long.

Because before long, the players stepping up get injured because they're playing so much. Dias is an example of that, Akanji too. International breaks don't help when Guardiola can't manage minutes even if he wanted to.

So either the remaining players keep getting flogged every three days without a break, or others have to come back early. Kyle Walker did it at Bournemouth and hasn't had a good game all season, and others have reported minor injuries across the board. It feels like nobody is fully fit.

And that lands us back at Dias, who couldn't come off against United when he felt a tweak, and City threw away two goals late on when a fit defender could have been on instead (but the only option was Stones on his return who clearly wasn't ready).

The defence against Villa will surely include Lewis and Gvardiol, despite neither being in form, and probably now Walker. Akanji or Ake could start, but the preference would be to ease them back slowly.

Guardiola doesn't have that luxury. So it's either an unfit, out of form back line, or risk bringing another key man too soon. More mistakes or more injuries.

Your choice, Pep. But there is seemingly no way out of this never-ending cycle of injuries.